Chapter Text
That one f*cking horrible night, that night of hell, just as Tora got home, Quincey began texting him to do some f*cking fancy ass shit with him early the next day, and he texted back a simple “NO.” F*ck, Princess knew that Vincent was monopolizing him these days.
Gyu texted him several updates on some other project. He left them on “READ.”
There were a few missed calls from Lane. F*ck that. I am NOT talking to her, not tonight.
Bobby checked in as usual by text, and he sent a quick “home safe sweetheart” and left it at that. They had a pattern, really. She knew he wasn’t talkative, especially via text, but he did he best to tell her every time he worked on Clan shit that he was home safe.
But then, suddenly, the dings of received texts on his phone erupted, relentless—again. With a huge groan, all he had to do was look down to confirm who sent them at such an unforgivable hour: Motherf*cking Vincent.
ENOUGH! Tora yelled at the top of his lungs. He was at an honest to f*cking goddamn breaking point. And he snapped. He threw his phone so hard, it shattered into pieces. He panted in frustration, and then collapsed, sitting on his ass on the parking garage floor, nearby his apartment house, at buttf*cking 3 in the morning, feet flat on the floor, elbows on his knees, with his head hanging between them. He was DONE.
He knew it was all too good to be true. He had been coming off the high he had after the joint birthday party with Poppy, but that euphoria only lasted him so long. Sure, there were some tense moments between the two of them, then, but he still had hope. And he was surprised and touched at her wanting to wear his ring on a chain around her neck. F*ck, even thinking of her—at all—always helped, of course, but…
Clan life came screaming back for him, practically instantaneously. Vincent became relentless, putting him to work for several days in a row, having Tora running all kinds of errands, and he was so exhausted, he barely had time to think or even sleep. He hadn’t even seen Quincey since the party. In fact, Quince had to bring in a backup bodyguard to take him to his regular Goldfish Publishing jaunts. Vincent was insistent that Tora could not be spared for the relatively tame task of being Quincey’s bodyguard. That was a blow, as Tora had been looking forward to all those opportunities to see Bobby much more frequently. Again, she texted him a lot, disappointed in not seeing him, and those cryptic responses to her were typical but necessary, to spare her the f*cking gruesome details of what had been happening lately, not that he shared any of that hot mess with her anyways.
But the last “errand” for Vincent had to be one of the worst he’s ever had to do. A rather large and successful restaurant (no, not the Black Swan, not that f*cking posh) was behind on Clan payments, and in fact, the owner was someone Tora knew very well, and f*ck he did NOT want to do it. But he had to. While he had been biding his time until he could find a way out of the Clan—if he could make it in the next few years without being executed himself—even the most heinous of shit still had to be done, no matter what he thought or if he cared, whether or not it was the most repugnant thing Vincent wanted. He couldn’t blow his mafia cover.
Tora was simply beyond tired of the violent drudgery. He was still capable of doing the necessary work to get that last mortal pound of flesh Vincent insisted upon, but something just snapped in him, especially after this most recent one, and definitely after those f*cking texts began again. He was more than his f*cking fists, goddammit.
It was in a very weak moment that he screamed his childhood refrain aloud, “Ishrikhara! I don’t want to do this anymore! I wish I had never been born!” This simple childhood lament was something he periodically exclaimed to himself, mostly, he had mumbled it when he was alone, young, starved, in a cage, but especially when the work for the Clan was rough. It was a mere momentary thought, just a silly thing he repeated only once in a while, during rare particular moments of fatigue, when the blood dripped off him, and he never had any idea why he invoked the name of the old Fallen Angel. This time though it was probably because he just visited the Fallen Angel club. But otherwise, he hadn’t thought of Ishrikhara for a very long time; why he said the name—out loud—he just had no idea but he was so tired. He didn’t even have the energy to get up off the parking garage floor. He felt himself drift off to sleep, furious, upset, and just so f*cking tired.